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Campaign Against Sharia Law a Threat to Indian Country

Gale Courey Toensing

9/6/11

The growing movement in the United States to ban the use of international law and Islam’s Sharia law in state courts sets a dangerous precedent for Indian country, spiritual leaders and legal authorities say.

In the past year, anti-Sharia laws have been passed or introduced in more than a dozen states—Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arizona and Tennessee are among the states that have passed bills restricting judges from consulting Sharia in their rulings, and Michigan is the most recent to introduce a similar bill.

The movement against Sharia (or Shariah) not only targets Muslim Americans and their First Amendment right to freedom of religion, but also threatens American Indian sovereignty, law and the government-to-government relationship between indigenous nations and state and federal governments, says Gabriel Galanda, a member of the Round Valley Indian Tribes and partner in the law firm Galanda Broadman of Seattle. “The various state laws being passed or proposed would quite literally prevent any state court judge from ever considering the laws of sovereign Indian nations, including tribal common law,” he says. “Anti-Sharia laws also fly in the face of the United States’s recent adoption of the [U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples], especially insofar as such laws could disallow state courts from ever considering the declaration and its import domestically.”

The controversy over Sharia—the broad body of Islamic religious law—bubbled over recently in New Jersey, when Republican Governor Chris Christie was scorched by conservatives for appointing a Muslim to the state Superior Court. Never one to stand down from a fight, Christie called a press conference to answer his critics. “The folks who criticize my appointment,” he said, “are ignorant. I nominated Sohail Mohammed because he’s a good lawyer and an outstanding human being.” Christie praised Mohammed as “an extraordinary American” who played an important role in building bridges between the Muslim American community and law-enforcement agencies post-9/11.

When asked if he was concerned that Mohammed would bring Sharia law to the bench, an exasperated Christie let loose: “Sharia law has nothing to do with this at all. It’s crazy! The guy’s an American citizen who’s been admitted to practice law in New Jersey, swearing an oath to uphold the laws of New Jersey, the Constitution of the state of New Jersey and the Constitution of the United States of America…. This Sharia law business is crap! It’s just crazy, and I’m tired of dealing with the crazies!”

“The crazies” Christie referenced, also known as Islamophobes, seem to be multiplying. The Internet abounds with fear-mongering, bigotry-spreading websites such as Creeping Sharia, Anti-Sharia and Atlas Shrugs, the latter site managed by anti-Islam activist Pamela Geller. The killing of Osama bin Laden in May has apparently not eased the minds of the many Americans who seem to see all Muslims as either real or aspiring terrorists. Republican celebrities Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich and Michele Bachmann have all recently warned about the “threat” of Sharia law, even though many of the proponents of anti-Sharia law movement would be hard-pressed to explain what Sharia law is. Bachmann, for example, recently promised a “rejection of Sharia Islam [sic] and all other anti-woman, anti–human rights forms of totalitarian control”—a statement that reveals a total lack of knowledge about both Islam and its religious laws.

Mohammed held up a copy of his citizenship papers at his ceremonial swearing-in as a rebuttal to conservatives who decried his appointment.

Sharia (which literally means “the way to the watering hole”) is Islam’s guide for how to live a moral life. Sharia deals with all aspects of daily life, such as family (marriage, divorce, custody, inheritance); finance, banking, and contracts (investing, forbidding the paying or charging of interest); social issues (dress, hygiene); religion; and acts which are almost universally viewed as crimes (theft, murder, rape). Because Islam does not separate church and state, Sharia is not just a legal system or a form of criminal justice, it is a code for living—similar to the Old Testament’s Ten Commandments, which are the moral basis of both Judaism and Christianity. Sharia law is not embodied in written statutes or policies, but rather is based on the Qur’an, the sayings and traditions of the prophet Muhammad, and the interpretations of legal scholars.
Sharia law, like Jewish law, most often comes into play in U.S. state courts in divorce and custody cases, or cases dealing with commercial or financial issues, but is always subject to compliance with state or federal law.

Banning any kind of religion or spiritual practice is a mistake, says Mohawk spiritual leader and Longhouse Chief Tom Porter, Bear Clan. “It’s a danger to everybody. This country is supposed to have been founded on the principle of people being allowed to practice any religion they want, so I don’t know how they can make a law against any religion,” he says.

The Haudenosaunee (or Iroquois) Confederacy—the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca and Tuscarora Indian nations—have a moral guide called the Code of Handsome Lake that is analogous in some ways to Sharia. Handsome Lake was an Iroquois prophet in the 18th and 19th centuries, and his code derived from a vision sent to the Iroquois people, Porter says. “The vision said that the white people from Europe who came here will use five things to control and manipulate and take over the Indian people, who had innocence like children; they hadn’t learned quite how to manipulate like the Europeans did.”

As is true with Islam, Christianity and Judaism, Iroquois people follow the Code of Handsome Lake to varying degrees. “Some people follow it and some people don’t,” says Kay Ionataiewas Olan, Mohawk, Wolf Clan, a storyteller and educator who has worked as Porter’s assistant. “Some people take from it what they feel is appropriate for their life and what their understanding is about how we’re supposed to live our lives and don’t necessarily accept everything in the code.”

Legislating against Sharia “opens the door” to similar actions against others, she says. “It’s setting a precedent and sending out a message

that it’s okay for one group to dictate how other people think and act. If there are people who think they can decide which freedoms can be allowed and which don’t have to be respected, then we don’t know who they’re going to disrespect next. It’s a little frightening—no, it’s very frightening—to think there’s a group that thinks this is okay.”

Last November voters in Oklahoma passed an amendment to the state Constitution banning courts from considering Sharia law—70 percent of the

voters supported it. Muneer Awad, Oklahoma executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, immediately challenged the law, claiming it violated the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause, which forbids the government from giving preference to one religion over another. He said Muslims support the way U.S. secular courts now handle Sharia-related issues—by calling in Muslim scholars and imams as expert witnesses in such cases as wills and divorce decrees that specify the use of Sharia principles, but ruling on the legal disputes. “Sharia is not a code of laws; it’s more of a guidance,” Awad said. “I can have a [Sharia-compliant] will and still have the U.S. court handle it.”

A federal judge ruling in Awad’s case barred the implementation of the anti-Sharia and international law amendment. “This order addresses issues that

“This Sharia law business is crap! It’s just crazy,” said Gov. Christie, “and I’m tired of dealing with the crazies!”

go to the very foundation of our country, our Constitution and, particularly, the Bill of Rights,” Judge Vicki Miles-LaGrange wrote in her ruling. “Throughout the course of our country’s history, the will of the ‘majority’ has on occasion conflicted with the constitutional rights of individuals.”

Galanda heartily endorses Miles-LaGrange’s ruling and cautions that “anti-Sharia laws could set Indian law back decades, if not centuries. By that I mean that statutory and common-law notions of state-tribal full faith and credit and comity—in other words, honoring the decisions of each other’s courts—could be vitiated,” he says, explaining that under an anti-Sharia provision, state courts could no longer consider tribal laws that bear on issues ranging, for example, from whether a tribe waived its sovereign immunity for commercial dispute, to whether a tribe has codes or customs and traditions regarding what is in the best interest of an Indian child in an Indian Child Welfare Act dispute.

The National Native American Bar Association (NNABA), of which Galanda is an officer, is so concerned that the ban on Sharia and international law in state courts could lead to the prohibition of states’ consideration of tribal law that it passed a resolution in April opposing any such law. Amidst a flurry of “whereas” clauses, the resolution says, “NNABA hereby denounces any state law or effort that seeks or operates to outlaw a state court’s consideration of tribal law, or to forbid a state court from honoring the laws or decisions of other states in which courts consider tribal law.”

Galanda thinks even more needs to be done. “Indian country should stand in opposition to the anti-Sharia movement,” he says.
This anti-Sharia contagion is not being spread in our drinking water—there is an organized effort to instill fear of Islam and Sharia. A recent article in The New York Times by Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Andrea Elliott called David Yerushalmi “the man behind the anti-Shariah movement.”

The controversy over the proposed Islamic center near Ground Zero in New York City, concerns about homegrown terrorism and the rise of the Tea Party have all contributed to the anti-Shaira movement, Elliott wrote, “but the campaign’s air of grassroots spontaneity, which has been carefully promoted by advocates, shrouds its more deliberate origins.” Elliott found that the anti-Sharia movement is the product of an orchestrated drive that began five years ago in New York’s Crown Heights neighborhood in Brooklyn, in the office of a little-known lawyer, Yerushalmi, “a 56-year-old Hasidic Jew with a history of controversial statements about race, immigration and Islam. Despite his lack of formal training in Islamic law, Mr. Yerushalmi has come to exercise a striking influence over American public discourse about Shariah. Working with a cadre of conservative public-policy institutes and former military and intelligence officials, Mr. Yerushalmi has written privately financed reports, filed lawsuits against the government and drafted the model legislation that recently swept through the country—all with the effect of casting Shariah as one of the greatest threats to American freedom since the cold war.”

In her research, Elliott found little evidence that Muslims were trying to take over America. “The more tangible effect of the movement, opponents say, is the spread of an alarmist message about Islam—the same kind of rhetoric that appears to have influenced Anders Behring Breivik, the suspect in the deadly dual attacks in Norway on July 22. The anti-Sharia campaign, they say, appears to be an end in itself, aimed at keeping Muslims on the margins of American life.”

Yerushalmi is the personal attorney of Geller, according to a report on LittleGreenFootballs.com, a blog that focuses on political issues. Geller often posts his writings on her popular blog. Recently, the two won a battle to put on New York City buses their misleading ads about the mosque and cultural center near the World Trade Center site. In what is clearly an irony deficiency, the two are using the First Amendment right to free speech to justify their demand—the same freedom they want to deny Muslim Americans.

Porter, who admits to not knowing much about Islam, warns against any religious discrimination. “The Creator did a good job and nobody needs to change us—it doesn’t matter if it’s Islam or Catholic or Jewish. As long as they respect other religions with the same equal respect then there’s no problem. The world is full of spiritual beliefs, just as the world is full of different flowers and colors and fragrances and that’s what makes it beautiful,” he says. In a prophecy of his own, he adds, “If they’re going to try to put everybody into one cylinder, it’s going to explode on them. There will continue to be bloodshed and war over and over because it’s not natural. The Creator didn’t make it that way. He made it diverse and full of color and full of beauty, and we’re one of those beauties.”

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I must respectfully disagree with the premise of this article. It is not possible to accurately compare application of Sharia law in America's courtrooms to any rights provided under the "American Indian sovereignty, law and the government-to-government relationship between indigenous nations and state and federal governments." The Nations have been declared as separate governing bodies - subsets of Muslims wanting Sharia law are not.
Even though the United States recently adopted the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Muslims are not an indigenous population here. Agreeing to accept their laws for use in US courts equates to agreeing to use Papal mandates in cases involving Catholics. The simple truth is that if you want to come and live in the US, you need to do so understanding that you will follow the same laws as all the other people who have come here. If that conflicts with your religious beliefs, then you have a choice to make: come here and set aside following those certain beliefs that contradict American law, or preserve your full spectrum of adherence to your belief system, and don't come here.
There are numerous examples where there has been an abridgement of some people's abilities to fully practice their religion when it impacts the greater body of the populous.
All of this is a completely different fact situation than exists with the First Peoples, for one incontrovertible and insurmountable reason: they were here first! These Peoples are entitled to receive different treatment than immigrants because, when they arrived, there wasn't anyone else here to have already established an existing system of behavior. The difference between the situation involving Native populations and that of immigrant populations should be plain enough that anyone can grasp it.
Finally, I must take issue with the use of the statement "Islam does not separate church and state, Sharia is not just a legal system or a form of criminal justice, it is a code for living." Sharia *can't* separate church and state - there is nowhere on earth a state or country called Islam or Muslim. It is a code adopted by populations in various countries, not a property of one. A 'legal system' without a foundation in a sovereign political entity is merely a widely-accepted agreement, not law. I believe the concern here is that of the slippery slope; were these types of rules allowed in American courts for issues regarding adherents, how long would it be before population balances shift enough for them to be applied across the board? It's not fear-mongering, it's an honest question that no one will address for fear of not appearing 'politically correct.'

Sir,
I briefly respond to your following assertion(s): "It is not possible to accurately compare application of Sharia law in America’s courtrooms to any rights provided under the 'American Indian sovereignty, law and the government-to-government relationship between indigenous nations and state and federal governments.' The Nations have been declared as separate governing bodies – subsets of Muslims wanting Sharia law are not." I do not disagree with you but feel compelled to expound upon the anti-Sharia state laws at issue, the language of which was not quoted in the article.
The various anti-Sharia state laws generally forbid state courts to consider international law or the law or any foreign nation, or to honor the laws or decisions of other states in which courts consider international law or the law or any foreign nation. General references in such state laws to “international law” or “the law or any foreign nation” could be construed by courts to forbid consideration of the various laws of federally-recognized tribal governments, which is bad enough as alluded in the article, but would also greatly disturb federal Indian and tribal law and jurisprudence as applied in federal, state and tribal courts and tribunals.
More precisely, preventing a state court from considering the laws of other states which consider international law or the law or any foreign nation could operate to greatly disturb legal notions of full faith and credit and comity amongst and between state, federal and tribal courts and tribunals.
Indeed, "the American Indian sovereignty, law and the government-to-government relationship between indigenous nations and state and federal governments" that you so eloquently champion, is at risk in the anti-Sharia legal movement. I hope Indian Country takes note and stands guard.
Gabe

Every article I read by Gale Toensing has such an unobjective slant, it's pointless reading. This author is constantly trying to lump Muslims and/or Palestinians together with Native Americans. We have nothing in common and it's an insult to our Native traditions and culture.

Muslims from Spain and West Africa arrived to the Americas at least five centuries before Columbus. It is recorded,for example, that in the mid-tenth century, during the rule of the Ummayyed Caliph Abdul-Rahman III (929-961 CE), Muslims of African origin sailed westward from the Spanish port of DELBA (Palos) into the “Ocean of darkness and fog”. They returned after a long absence with much booty from a “strange and curious land”. It is evident that people of Muslim origin are known to have accompanied Columbus and subsequent Spanish explorers to the New World.
The last Muslim stronghold in Spain, Granada, fell to the Christians in 1492 CE, just before the Spanish inquisition was launched. To escape persecution, many non-Christians fled or embraced Catholicism. At least two documents imply the presence of Muslims in Spanish America before 1550 CE. Despite the fact that a decree issued in 1539 CE by Charles V, king of Spain, forbade the grandsons of Muslims who had been burned at the stake to migrate to the West Indies. This decree was ratified in 1543 CE, and an order for the expulsion of all Muslims from overseas Spanish territories was subsequently published. Many references on the Muslim arrival to Americas are available. They are summarized in the following
A: HISTORIC DOCUMENTS:
1. A Muslim historian and geographer ABUL-HASSAN ALI IBN AL-HUSSAIN
AL-MASUDI (871-957 CE) wrote in his book Muruj adh-dhahab wa maadin aljawhar (The meadows of gold and quarries of jewels) that during the rule of the Muslim caliph of Spain Abdullah Ibn Mohammad(888-912 CE), a Muslim navigator, Khashkhash Ibn Saeed Ibn Aswad, from Cortoba, Spain sailed from Delba (Palos) in 889 CE, crossed the Atlantic, reached an unknown territory (ard majhoola) and returned with fabulous treasures. In Al-Masudi’s map of the world there is a large area in the ocean of darkness and fog which he referred to as the unknown territory (Americas).(1)
2. A Muslim historian ABU BAKR IBN UMAR AL-GUTIYYA narrated that during the reign of the Muslim caliph of Spain, Hisham II (976-1009CE), another Muslim navigator, Ibn Farrukh, from Granada, sailed from Kadesh (February 999CE) into the Atlantic, landed in Gando (Great Canary islands) visiting King Guanariga, and continued westward where he saw and named two islands, Capraria and Pluitana. He arrived back in Spain in May 999 CE.(2)
3. Columbus sailed from Palos (Delba), Spain. He was bound for GOMERA (Canary Islands)-Gomera is an Arabic word meaning ‘small firebrand’ – there he fell in love with Beatriz BOBADILLA, daughter of the first captain general of the island (the family name BOBADILLA is derived from the Arab Islamic name ABOU ABDILLA.).Nevertheless, the BOBADILLA clan was not easy to ignore. Another Bobadilla (Francisco) later, as the royal commissioner, put Columbus in chains and transferred him from Santo Dominigo back to Spain (November 1500 CE). The BOBADILLA family was related to the ABBADID dynasty of Seville (1031-1091 CE). On October 12, 1492 CE, Columbus landed on a little island in the Bahamas that was called GUANAHANI by the natives. Renamed SAN SALVADOR by Columbus. GUANAHANI is derived from Mandinka and modified Arabic words. GUANA (IKHWANA) means ‘brothers’ and HANI is an Arabic name.Therefore the original name of the island was ‘HANI BROTHERS’. (11) Ferdinand Columbus, the son of Christopher, wrote about the blacks seen by his father in Handuras: “The people who live farther east of Pointe Cavinas, as far as Cape Gracios a Dios, are almost black in color.” At the same time, in this very same region, lived a tribe of Muslim natives known as ALMAMY. In Mandinka and Arabic languages, ALMAMY was the designation of “AL-IMAM”or “AL-IMAMU”, the leader of the prayer,or in some cases, the chief of the community,and/or a member of the Imami Muslim community. (12)
NOTES
4. A renowned American historian and linguist, LEO WEINER of Harvard University, in his book, AFRICA AND THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA (1920) wrote that Columbus was well aware of the Mandinka presence in the New World and that the West African Muslims had spread throughout the Caribbean, Central, South and North American territories, including Canada,where they were trading and intermarrying with the Iroquois and Algonquin Indians. (13)
B: GEOGRAPHIC EXPLORATIONS:
1. The famous Muslim geographer and cartographer AL-SHARIF AL-IDRISI (1099- 1166CE) wrote in his famous book Nuzhat al-mushtaq fi ikhtiraq al-afaq (Excursion of the longing one in crossing horizons) that a group of seafarers (from North Africa) sailed into the sea of darkness and fog (The Atlantic ocean) from Lisbon (Portugal), in order to discover what was in it and what extent were its limits. They finally reached an island that had people and cultivation…on the fourth day, a translator spoke to them in the Arabic language. (3)
2. The Muslim reference books mentioned a well-documented description of a journey across the sea of fog and darkness by Shaikh ZAYN EDDINE ALI BEN FADHEL AL-MAZANDARANI. His journey started from Tarfaya (South Morocco) during the reign of the King Abu-Yacoub Sidi Youssef (1286-1307CE) 6th of the Marinid dynasty, to Green Island in the Caribbean sea in 1291 CE (690 HE). The details of his ocean journey are mentioned in Islamic references, and many Muslim scholars are aware of this recorded historical event..(4)
3. The Muslim historian CHIHAB AD-DINE ABU-L-ABBAS AHMAD BEN FADHL AL-UMARI (1300-1384CE/700-786HE) described in detail the geographical explorations beyond the sea of fog and darkness of Mali’s sultans in his famous book Massaalik al-absaar fi mamaalik al-amsaar (The pathways of sights in the provinces of kingdoms).(5)
4. Sultan MANSU KANKAN MUSA (1312-1337 CE) was the world renowned Mandinka monarch of the West African Islamic empire of Mali. While travelling to Makkah on his famous Hajj in 1324 CE, he informed the scholars of the Mamluk Bahri sultan court (An-Nasir Nasir Edin Muhammad III-1309-1340 CE) in Cairo, that his brother, sultan Abu Bakari I (1285-1312CE) had undertaken two expeditions into the Atlantic Ocean. When the sultan did not return to Timbuktu from the second voyage of 1311 CE, Mansa Musa became sultan of the empire. (6)
5. Columbus and early Spanish and portuguese explorers were able to voyage across the Atlantic (a distance of 2400 Km’s) thanks to Muslim geographical and navigational information. In particular maps made by Muslim traders, including AL-MASUDI (871-957CE) in his book Akhbar az-zaman (History of the world) which is based on material gathered in Africa and Asia (9). As a matter of fact, Columbus had two captain of muslim origin during his first transatlantic voyage: Martin Alonso Pinzon was the captain of the PINTA,and his brother Vicente Yanez Pinzon was the captain of the NINA. They were wealthy, expert ship outfitters who helped organize the Columbus expedition and prepared the flagship, SANTA MARIA. They did this at their own expense for both commercial and political reasons. The PINZON family was related to ABUZAYAN MUHAMMAD III (1362-66 CE), the Moroccan sultan of the Marinid dynasty (1196-1465CE). (10)
C: ARABIC ( ISLAMIC ) INSCRIPTIONS:
1. Anthropologists have proven that the Mandinkos under Mansa Musa’s instructions explored many parts of North America via the Mississippi and other rivers systems. At Four Corners, Arizona, writings show that they even brought elephants from Africa to the area.(7)
2. Columbus admitted in his papers that on Monday, October 21,1492 CE while his ship was sailing near Gibara on the north-east coast of Cuba, he saw a mosque on top of a beautiful mountain. The ruins of mosques and minarets with inscriptions of Quranic verses have been discovered in Cuba,Mexico,Texas and Nevada. (8)
3. During his second voyage, Columbus was told by the indians of ESPANOLA (Haiti), that black people had been to the island before his arrival. For proof, they presented Columbus with the spears of these African muslims. These weapons were tipped with a yellow metal that the indians called GUANIN, a word of West African derivation meaning ‘gold alloy’. Oddly enough, it is related to the Arabic word ‘GHINAA’ which means ‘WEALTH’. Columbus brought some GUANINES back to Spain and had them tested. He learned that the metal was 18 parts gold (56.25%), 6 parts silver (18.75%) and 8 parts copper (25%), the same ratio as the metal produced in African metalshops of Guinea. (14)
4. In 1498 CE, on his third voyage to the new world, Columbus landed in Trinidad. Later, he sighted the South American continent, where some of his crew went ashore and found natives using colorful handkerchiefs of symmetrically woven cotton. Columbus noticed that these handkerchiefs resembled the headdresses and loinclothes of Guinea in their colors, style and function. He refered to them as ALMAYZARS. ALMAYZAR is an Arabic word for ‘wrapper’,’cover’,’apron’ and/or ‘skirting’ which was the cloth the Moors (Spanish or North African Muslims) imported from west Africa (Guinea) into Morocco, Spain and Portugal. During this voyage, Columbus was surprised that the married women wore cotton panties (bragas) and he wondered where these natives learned their modesty. Hernan Cortes, Spanish conqueror, described the dress of the Indian women as ‘long veils’ and the dress of Indian men as ‘breechcloth painted in the style of Moorish draperies’. Ferdinand Columbus called the native cotton garments ‘breechclothes of the same design and cloth as the shawls worn by the Moorish women of Granada’. Even the similarity of the children’s hammocks to those found in North Africa was uncanny.(15)
5. Dr. Barry Fell (Harvard University) introduced in his book ‘Saga America-1980′ solid scientific evidence supporting the arrival, centuries before Columbus, of Muslims from North and West Africa. Dr. Fell discovered the existence of the Muslim schools at Valley of Fire, Allan Springs, Logomarsino, Keyhole, Canyon, Washoe and Hickison Summit Pass (Nevada), Mesa Verde (Colorado), Mimbres Valley (New Mexico) and Tipper Canoe(Indiana) dating back to 700-800 CE. Engraved on rocks in the arid western U.S, he found texts, diagrams and charts representing the last surviving fragments of what was once a system of schools – at both an elementary and higher level. The language of instruction was North African Arabic written with old Kufic Arabic scripts. The subjects of instruction included writing, reading, arithmetic, religion, history, geography, mathematics, astronomy and sea navigation. The descendants of the Muslim visitors of North America are members of the present Iroquois, Algonquin, Anasazi, Hohokam and Olmec native people..(16)
6. There are 565 names of places (villages, towns, cities, mountains, lakes, rivers,.. etc. ) in U.S.A. (484) and Canada (81) which derived from Islamic and Arabic roots. These places were originally named by the natives in precolumbian periods. Some of these names carried holy meanings such as: Mecca-720 inhabitants (Indiana), Makkah Indian tribe (Washington), Medina-2100 (Idaho), Medina-8500 (N.Y.), Medina-1100, Hazen-5000 (North Dakota), Medina-17000/Medina-120000 (Ohio), Medina-1100 (Tennessee), Medina-26000 (Texas), Medina-1200 (Ontario), Mahomet-3200 (Illinois), Mona-1000 (Utah), Arva-700 (Ontario)…etc. A careful study of the names of the native Indian tribes revealed that many names are derived from Arab and Islamic roots and origins, i.e. Anasazi, Apache, Arawak, Arikana, Chavin, Cherokee, Cree, Hohokam, Hupa, Hopi, Makkah, Mahigan, Mohawk, Nazca, Zulu, Zuni…etc..